In case today’s title wasn’t a dead giveaway of the topic of today’s post…

GUESS WHAT?! THIS POST RIGHT HERE IS POST #100 ON ADVENTURE RULES!!!!!!1!!!!1!!

That’s right, today WordPress had the joy of telling me that I made my 100th post. And while I may be treating this accomplishment a bit flippantly, I truly am proud of it.

For those who don’t know, I started Adventure Rules on the last day of August 2015 as a writing exercise. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old. For a long time, I let that dream go. “It’s not possible,” I said. “It’s not practical,” others said. I decided to pursue the much more achievable and realistic field of theater instead.

But towards the end of college and particularly post-college, I rediscovered my love of writing and decided that this was what I really wanted to do. But other than an English degree, I’ve got nothing to show. I’d spent the last four years cultivating a strong resume for the theater world, only to decide I didn’t want to use it. Instead, I chose to pursue writing, a field in which I have no internships and no published work to speak of (save for a poem and a short story that made it into my college’s annual publication). After not writing seriously since high school, I needed to get back into the game. And I chose to do that through blogging.

Keeping up a blog and trying to get it to grow is quite a challenge. After all, you’ve got to keep posting to keep people’s attention, and you can’t post if you aren’t writing. So starting Adventure Rules was really an exercise in writing on a regular basis, and writing to a deadline – two skills I am going to need if I’m serious about writing as a career. Now I’m sure there are some folks out there who might think it’s a bit silly – if I want to write, why not just use the time I’ve been investing in the blog to start my novels or apply for journalism industry jobs or whatever? Well, the other thing I needed was a bit of encouragement.

That’s not to say that I don’t have a great support system. My mother is perhaps the most avid fan of this blog. She knows nothing about video games or Nintendo or tabletops and yet she’s here every day or two catching up on the latest Adventure Rules content. My grandparents, who know nothing about fantasy or video games or novel-writing, always ask how my writing is going. I have friends who love to spitball ideas about posts, and who are often the inspiration for some of the posts that I write. And while my wife isn’t invested in the content of the blog, she always encourages me to keep writing and pursue my passion.

But here’s the thing. It’s one thing to have family members who are proud of you and who encourage you and ask you questions. It’s one thing to have friends who think you are a good GM and that you should totally make graphic novels out of the campaigns you design. It’s a whole ‘nother ball game for a total stranger on the internet to take time out of their day to read what you have to say and actually enjoy reading it.

That’s the encouragement I needed. I needed to know if anyone out there who didn’t know me by name cared about what I have to say. And golly did you deliver, adventurers.

I recently discussed the goal of reaching 100 followers for the blog. That’s as many people as the blog currently has posts. And while I absolutely want to reach that goal, I am already floored by the current accomplishments of the blog. I’ve gone from a guy who was lucky to be motivated enough to write once a week to someone who posts every single day. I’ve gone from someone who didn’t know if his voice was one people wanted to hear to someone who has over forty followers across four websites. We’ve got five different goals to accomplish for the blog in 2016, but today I’m going to enjoy the goals that have already been accomplished.

The biggest thing I want to do is say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been reading Adventure Rules and helping to make it successful. Whether you got here last week or you’ve been following from the very beginning, your support is the biggest reason that I keep writing. You’ve given me the courage to put myself out there and the encouragement that I needed when I wasn’t sure that anyone cared whether I wrote things or not.

It may be a long time coming before a novel of mine ever hits the shelves, or before I get hired on as a writer at a legitimate company. But that’s now a future that I see as a real possibility and not just a silly fantasy.

If you’re in the possibly-awkward position of reading this post and today being the first day you’ve ever visited Adventure Rules: welcome. I invite you to stick around and read some of the other content, because there’s 99 other posts on here and my guess is that at least one of them will make you laugh, make you think, or make you want to play some video games. As I mentioned, Adventure Rules is looking for some new followers to help the blog grow and expand, and you have a very real opportunity to help us reach that goal. But don’t follow just because I made you feel guilty or inspired or whatever – follow because you really want to see more of where the blog is going.

Thank you all again for helping Adventure Rules reach 100 posts. Thank you for your support, your patience, your likes, your comments, and your willingness to give a young unknown a chance to be heard. Or read, as the case is here.

Let’s make the next 100 even better than the first!

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Published by Robert Ian Shepard

Robert Ian Shepard is a husband, father, and aspiring writer. If you need a good laugh, check out his blog Adventure Rules, the Essential Companion of Heroic Adventurers!
View all posts by Robert Ian Shepard

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One thought on “100th Post on Adventure Rules!”

Yeahhhhhh! Congrats and keep going. I too decided to “get serious” this past August, so I totally know where you’re at – and I’m enjoying your thoughts on gaming and gamemaking along the way. If you’re ever curious about self-publishing, either your stories or your game rules, let me know and I can point you to some helpful resources.